From Belgian and French paratroops to Che Guevara and CIA funded Cuban B-26 pilots, the Congo has been a hotbed of African conflict in the late 20th century. When the colonial powers began retreating from Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, the Belgian Congo/Zaire became the bloodiest, most chaotic example of 'how not to do it', and has remained so ever... more...

Portugal was both the first and the last of the great European colonial powers. For 500 years Portugal had colonies in Africa. In 1960, as liberation movements swept across colonial Africa, the Portuguese flag still flew over vast expanses of territory across the continent. The spread of decolonization and the establishment of independent states whose... more...

The Rhodesian War of 1965?80 is the battle for control of present day Zimbabwe. The former British colony of Southern Rhodesia rejected British moves towards majority rule and on 11 November 1965 the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith announced his country?s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. That act sparked a series of violent... more...

There can be no region in Europe whose history has been more tortured than Ukraine. During the 20th century Austria, Poland, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania vied for power over parts of this vast and fragmented area; and its divided peoples rose time and again in vain attempts to win their independence. For the first time in the... more...

Movie texts are often examined for subtexts and for the way that they dramatize social and psychological issues as well as current movements. Through a Catholic Lens looks at the Catholic subtext through a collection of studies of 19 film directors from around the world whose Catholic backgrounds can be found in their writing and directing. more...